NASA Prepares For New Juno Mission To Jupiter

[n2doc]

ScienceDaily (Nov. 27, 2008) — NASA is officially moving forward on a mission to conduct an unprecedented, in-depth study of Jupiter.

Called Juno, the mission will be the first in which a spacecraft is placed in a highly elliptical polar orbit around the giant planet to understand its formation, evolution and structure. Underneath its dense cloud cover, Jupiter safeguards secrets to the fundamental processes and conditions that governed our early solar system.

"Jupiter is the archetype of giant planets in our solar system and formed very early, capturing most of the material left after the sun formed," said Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. "Unlike Earth, Jupiter's giant mass allowed it to hold onto its original composition, providing us with a way of tracing our solar system's history."

The spacecraft is scheduled to launch aboard an Atlas rocket from Cape Canaveral, Fla., in August 2011, reaching Jupiter in 2016. The spacecraft will orbit Jupiter 32 times, skimming about 4,800 kilometers (3,000 miles) over the planet's cloud tops for approximately one year. The mission will be the first solar powered spacecraft designed to operate despite the great distance from the sun.

more:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081124164600.htm

[jeff30997]

1. Really cool.

Jupiter and its moons have always fascinated me.

[SnowGoose]

2. Solar powered - that's refreshing

I have a deep and abiding passion for space exploration and planetary science, but I still shudder when they launch nuclear-powered probes. Maybe it's from watching the video loops of challenger so many times. Nothing would sour the public on space science like a terrible contamination event.

[eppur_se_muova]

3. Dang. Too late for K&R. nt

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. 3000 miles is really close - Jupiter's diameter is 88700 miles

when it's that close, Jupiter will fill nearly half of the sky for the spacecraft. It should be able to get great photos - it's half as close again as the Galileo probe ever got.